I've been thinking about the whole debate we've been having about whether pop music is "good music" and whether or not we should teach it to our students. This whole deep "good music" debate is all well and good but there is still one major problem we face when dealing with pop music in the classroom:
Subject matter.
There are definitely exceptions, but on the whole, the majority of pop music about love, or sex, or uses some kind of profanity. And while in a high school you could probably get away with singing simple love songs, I plan to teach elementary school.
Is there really any significant quantity of pop music that is both "singable" and appropriate for children?
I'd really like to hear some thoughts on this because I haven't been coming up with much of anything.
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4 comments:
You raise a good question. I will be sure to find a way to address this issue in an upcoming Music Ed Lab. There have been elementary schools who have performed popular music in a reasonably authentic way. Remind me to tell you about the Langley Schools Music Project.
I like this question a lot Deirdre. I feel like it's necessary to teach our students about all aspects of music so they can get a better understanding of music as a whole. I took a really great class my junior year of high school called History of Pop Music. We started all the way back in the 20's and got into some really awesome discussions and listened to some really cool things. Taking that class definitely opened my mind a lot more to broadening my musical horizons and definitely made me realize that it is necessary to learn about pop music. I think it all depends on the age you're teaching though.
Who knows! My thoughts aren't complete at all. But I swear it all makes sense in my head.
I don't mean to oversimplify, but I think that love, sex, (and in some cases, profanity) are the main subject matter of almost ALL music, not just pop music.
Think, for instance about the basic plot of most Operas. They're almost all about sex and someone cheating on someone else and there's usually a dirty mistress or a whore in there somewhere. And yet the general consensus is still that Opera is high art, pretty much the classiest performing art there is.
I think you have to be conscious of the age of your students and pick appropriate subject matter no matter which genre you are teaching.
Yeah, I mean, I remember hearing a story about a teacher who showed an opera to her students that had the devil in it and the parents wanted her HEAD for it! (which I think is just ludicrous, about as ludicrous as parents that would want our heads for playing some pop music). We have to use some sense, but there's PLENTY of pop music that has NO questionable material in it. Plenty. at least in my opinion.
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